ZOMBIES: "Chronicles of the Dead": A Zombie Novel by Will Lemen Page A

us, but the riverbank was too uneven and filled with bushes and trees, making it impossible for any of those ungainly sub-human aberrations to keep up with us for long.
    Moments before we were out of sight of the horde, we heard gunshots and saw several zombies fall to the ground as their heads exploded, leaving a red cloud of mist in the air where their heads had once been.
    “Someone is clearing out that group,” Gin said, as she settled back in her seat.
    “With extreme prejudice I might add!” I said. "Oh well, better them than us!"
    "Indeed! Way better them than us," Gin then added.
    “It takes a serious high powered rifle to vaporize somebody's skull like that, and a bigger caliber than our .243 I think,” Jacob remarked.
    “You're probably right, we need to be extremely vigilant,” I said. "And stay as low as we can in the boat, no reason to give someone a bigger target than need be. Whoever is thinning that horde must have seen us too; we're luck that they didn't take any pot shots at us .”
    The next several hours passed without incident. Therefore, during that time, I decided that this would be a good time to come up with some rules for our survival.
    “We need to think of some rules,” I said, breaking the serene silence that we were just beginning to become accustom too.
    “What kind of rules?” Gin asked.
    “Rules to live by, and survive by,” I answered.
    “That’s not much of an answer; give us an example of one of these rules of yours,” Gin asked acting a little annoyed.
    “Well,” I said. “They're not just my rules, we need to brainstorm and come up with as many ideas as we can to help us survive this holocaust.”
    Putting a thoughtful look on my face, I stated.
    “For example, nobody goes anywhere alone, never ever, not into the woods to take a crap, not to look for food, not for anything or for any reason. Ever! Get it?”
    “I get it,” Jake excitedly answered. “You mean like always carry two guns on you all the time!”
    Smiling, I replied. “That’s right, somebody write these down so we can go through them and sort them out when we’re done.”
    “I will, anyone have a pen or pencil?” Jake asked, as he started looking through one of the backpacks we had on board the boat.
    When we were franticly rushing around trying to pack things that we thought we would need on our journey, pen and paper were not high on the list. However, Jacob did manage to find a crumpled spiral notebook and a pencil at the bottom of a backpack that he used to take to school.
    “Okay, I’m ready!” Jacob stated proudly.
    “Did you put the first two rules down yet?” Billy asked sarcastically, shaking his head back and forth, indicating that he didn't think Jacob had.
    “Oh, hold on," Jacob insisted, and moments later, he announced. "Okay I got’em,” he said, as he held up the paper for everyone to see.
    “Nobody goes anywhere alone and always carry at least two guns.”
    “How about always keep a gun within reach, I mean if you put your guns down when you lie down to go to sleep, you keep them close to you,” Billy added.
    “That’s a good idea,” Gin said, enthusiastically for a change.
    “What else?” Jacob spouted, excited about this new boredom breaking exercise.
    “What about always keep a backup weapon with you? You know, a knife, or a club, or something,” Billy recommended.
    “I think a club might be a little awkward for a backup weapon, but you could certainly use one as a primary weapon. I mean when a gun isn’t suitable, like when you have to be quiet and not attract a lot of attention,” I countered.
    "You mean like all of the time?" Jacob wisecracked.
    "Indeed, I have taught you well my son!" I wisecracked back.
    As we continued down the river, we managed to compile quite a few rules, some we made up ourselves, and some we remembered from zombie movies or television shows.
    We weeded out or modify the rules that probably weren’t workable in a real zombie world,